[...] What do we make of a system where the rise and fall of whole economies appear to hinge on the performative speech acts of central bank chiefs, or on the confidence and credulity of increasingly fickle investors (Marazzi 2008, 13–36); of a system where stock markets are so jittery and interwoven that they can tumble because of a leaked memo at a Fortune 500 corporation? What do we make of a system that, ultimately, is in the grip of imaginary money, where nearly unfathomable flows of immaterial wealth define and determine the material lives of nearly everyone on the planet? There is something here about the relationship of culture and economics that troubles our established understandings and frameworks.